South Korean Horror Movies - 3 - A

South Korean Horror Movies

301/302 – Two obsessive compulsives, a chef and an anorexic writer are neighbors in an apartment building. The chef (301) tries to entice her neighbor to eat fabulous meals. The writer (302) refuses to eat, and this refusal begins a turbulent relationship that forces both women to delve into their pasts of torment. The film details the relationship between two neighbors, Song-Hee a chef, and Yun-Hee an anorexic writer. After her divorce, Song-Hee moves in next door to Yun-Hee. Realizing she is an anorexic, Song-Hee begins to torment Yun-Hee by offering her food, eventually forcing it upon her violently. Both women’s pasts are explored. Yun-Hee’s sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather, butcher by trade; Song-Hee’s dysfunctional marriage, her obesity, and finally the moment she cooks her husband’s dog and feeds it to him as an act of revenge. The film ends as Yun-Hee offers her own body to be cooked and eaten. After her death and consumption, Yun-Hee is shown living happily in Song-Hee’s apartment as a spirit. The film is told in flashback as Song-Hee is interviewed by a detective who is investigating Yun-Hee’s disappearance.

ACACIA – Mi-Sook and her husband have been attempting to have a baby, but their efforts have proven to be unsuccessful. They then decide to adopt a young child, although Mi-Sook was against the idea at first. While visiting the orphanage, Mi-Sook notices a painting that she is attracted to and decides to adopt Jin-Sung the child who drew the picture. The new family gets along well, but things change after Mi-Sook becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy. Jin-Sung begins to feel alienated from his family and he becomes obsessed with an acacia tree in the family’s garden. After his parents confront Jin-Sung about his behavior with his new stepbrother, Jin-Sung overhears his mom talking about sending Jin-Sung back to the orphanage. Soon after, Jin-Sung disappears and horrifying events begin to take place in their home. Unable to have children of their own, married couple Mi-Sook and Do-il adopt a young boy named Lee Jin-Sung. His name soon gets changed to Kim Jin-Sung when he moves with Mi-Sook and Do-il. The boy is drawn to an acacia tree in his new home’s backyard, believing it to be his mother, and soon it becomes the focal point for an increasing number of strange occurrences when Jin-Sung appears to have run away. Jin-Sung befriends an older girl named Min-Jee, She tells Jin-Sung that she cannot go to school as she has lost a lot of blood. After she kisses, Jin-Sung, he becomes even more aggressive and violent. He turns even worse as Mi-Sook becomes pregnant and has a new baby named Hae-Sung. Jin-Sung, experiencing many emotional difficulties, becomes more withdrawn and confused. He starts to develop an anger towards his adopted family, so much that he tries to smother the new baby. Mi-Sook gets so frustrated with Jin-Sung’s actions and obsession towards the acacia tree that she decides to chop the tree down, which results in Jin-Sung’s allegedly running away. After Jin-Sung runs away, the previously dying tree starts to bloom with spectacular life. Min-Jee starts changing as well, become more obsessed with the acacia tree. She starts climbing to hear Jin-Sung’s voice coming from inside the tree, witnessing experiences occurring around the tree, flowers and ants attacking the people in Jin-Sung’s family. It is revealed that his mother gravely injured Jin-Sung by accident while she was trying to chop down the tree. Her husband saw this and helped her bury their adopted son’s body, thinking he was dead. But when Jin-Sung’s arm moved, alerting the couple that he was alive, Do-il smashed his body with the shovel and finished burying him. Jin-Sung’s mother, out of guilt and stress, eventually created an illusion for herself that her son had run away, all the time sinking further and further into her guilt, losing her grip on reality.

APT – A young woman, who lives in an old apartment suburban of Seoul, finds herself amused observing opposite side apartments. One day, she finds out that the lights of some houses on the opposite apartments kept being turned off at the very same time. She concluded that this weird happening is somehow related to those mysterious serial deaths. She begins to act to figure out the mystery and becomes deeply involved. Se-Jin Oh, a lonely young career woman, lives in a high-rise apartment building in a Seoul suburb, and sometimes watches her neighbors through binoculars for amusement. Taking the subway home one night near Christmas, a woman dressed in red throws herself in front of the train, attempting to drag Se-Jin with her. The dead woman haunts Se-Jin, though she doesn’t know it. However, she does notice that the lights across the way flicker mysteriously at exactly 9:56pm every night – often accompanied by an apparent suicide. Se-Jin is befriended by Yoo-Yeon, a wheelchair-bound woman abused by her caregivers, several of whom are among the victims. Yoo-Yeon gives Se-Jin a puzzle cube, noting it can help to forget the pain for a while. Se-Jin attempts to influence her neighbors, begging them to not turn their lights off before 10pm. This puts her in conflict with police detective Yang, who learns that many of the victims have identical keys to an apartment. The apartment that matches the key 704, is Yoo-Yeon’s – but Yang finds the resident is Shin Jung-Soo, a social recluse with long black hair, who attacks Yang, but denies having committed any murders. Se-Jin has also made friends with a student, Jung-Hong, whose parents leave her behind when they go out of town. Se-Jin passes the puzzle cube on to Jung-Hong, who notices that the tiles always go back to their original configuration. Looking at the cube, Se-Jin realizes the numbers inscribed on the tiles match up to the apartment numbers of the known victims, save one. They also find an article that notes Yoo-Yeon committed suicide a year ago. Se-Jin goes to apartment 1203 to investigate, finding another dead person, with a key to 704 in their mouth. In the apartment, Se-Jin relives Yoo-Yeon’s experiences, as the recluse relates them to Yang, orphaned when her parents died in a car wreck. Yoo-Yeon’s neighbors voluntarily decide to care for her, but over time come to hate and mistreat her, including attempted rape and assorted physical abuse. Yoo-Yeon takes her own life, her blood turning her dress completely red, but her spirit remains. Terrified to go back to the apartment, Shin Jung-Soo kills himself with an officer’s gun. Jung-Hong sees her parents come home, but as it is close to 9:56p she races to keep them from being hurt. Meanwhile, Yoo-Yeon confronts Se-Jin, threatening to kill her for turning away from her like the others. Se-Jin escapes to the roof, but is followed by Yoo-Yeon, to end her hatred and pain. Se-Jin allows Yoo-Yeon to take her over, and jumps from the roof, witnessed by Yang and Jung-Hong. Two months later, Jung-Hong helps Detective Yang move into an apartment in the same building. They see an apparition of Se-Jin and then the lights flicker, its 9:56 pm.

ARANG – Detective So-Young is reinstated after as suspension. She is then thrown into a mysterious case with rookie cop Hyun-Ki. The victim died from apparently acid released from inside his own body. The only clue the detectives have to work on is an email sent to the victim prior to his death. Then more deaths occur in the same manner. How are the victims related? How does a death that occurred 10 years ago and a salt storehouse relate to the case? The two detectives work feverishly to find the answers. A veteran detective So-Young and her rookie partner Hyun-Ki come across an incendiary homicide case. They discover that the present case is related to the mysterious death of a girl ten years prior. So-Young becomes plagued with nightmares in which the girl appears and the killings continue. The girl is actually Min-Jeong, Hyun-Ki’s firswt love. Those who died are killed by Hyun-Ki by giving them a cigarette that inlaid with a gas which causes a stimulated heart attack. Those who have the cigarette raped Min-Jeong 10 years ago in an abandoned salt house. Hyun-Ki was forced to tape the incident as he was emotionally wounded when he saw Min-Jeong and her lover making out in the salt house at graduation day. Hurt, he agrees to tape the incident when the group who plans to rape Min-Jeong persuaded him. Min-Jeong’s lover, who came by to save her, was killed by one of the group members. Min-Jeong was said to have gone mad and disappeared after that incident, but in fact she was pregnant and buried under a mount of salt after one of the police officers who handled the rape incident tricked her into the salt house and locked her inside, burying her along with her unborn child. Hyun-Ki threatens the police officer to go to the salt house and dig out Miin-Jeong. So-Young catches upon both of them and also threatens Hyun-Ki to put down his gun. Hyun-Ki pleads with So-Young to kill him, but So-Young refuses, saying that she will let him live in regret and make him watch his children suffer after him, whispering in his ear when he’s dying and says that his life is no better than a stray dog. Hyun-Ki states that he can’t bear it and is afraid to live that kind of life ends his life by committing suicide. The water that rains down on that day washes away the salt that buried Min-Jeong, and slowly Min-Jeong’s body is revealed along with her dead baby between her legs. Her corpse is not rotten, thanks to the salt that preserved her body. The forensic doctor states that when a pregnant woman dies, gas forms inside the body. The gas pushes the baby out even after the mother is dead. So-Young was once violated by an unknown man with a scar on his right hand when she was young. She stated that the reason she became a police officer was to find that man and kill him. After the incident, the man who violated her, now a father and a successful businessman, mysteriously dies in a hotel room. It is said that the night before the man died, So-Young dreamed about the girl wearing a white dress, smiling and laughing together in the salt house. She concluded that the dream she had signified that Min-Jeong had helped her take her revenge by killing the man, and after that So-Young writes a novel and gets it published. At the end of the film, there’s a myth said to relate to the movie. The Legend of Arang 400 years ago states that there’s a village full of new magistrates that are killed mysteriously. That is why no new magistrate dares to go to the village to be appointed. However, there’s a new magistrate willing to go to the village. He found out that the spirit of Arang is full of hatred and revenge because she was raped and killed. After that, he helped the spirit to catch the culprit who raped and killed her, sending the culprit to justice. He found Arang’s corpse and buried her. It was said that because of her hatred, her corpse did not rot when it was found after so many years.